The total scale is rebounding rapidly

Fast food is a light-service, limited-service catering format with a short consumption time, providing fast and consistent food and services, often with customized platforms designed for fast and efficient ordering, cooking and serving.

Since 2016, China's fast food market size to maintain a steady growth momentum of development, in 2019, the market size for the first time exceeded one trillion. 2020, by the impact of the new Crown pneumonia epidemic, the fast food market size appeared to fall back to 2021, with the gradual control of the domestic epidemic, the country's fast food market size rebounded, once again exceeded one trillion yuan, growing to 1,097.1 billion yuan with a year-on-year growth of 17.54%, accounting for 23.4% of the total size of the national food and beverage market.

Chinese fast food accounted for 70%

China's vast area, the population is large, there are some differences in climate change, geographic environment, the pattern of life, dietary habits, life consumption level. People treat their dietary needs are different, the catering market is increasingly favored by consumers.

With the development of social economy and the improvement of people's living standards, people's consumption concepts are constantly changing. The proportion of dining out is getting higher and higher, and catering consumption is more rationalized. Overall, China's fast food market can be roughly divided into two categories: Chinese fast food and Western fast food.

Specific to the fast food industry composition, according to Frost & Sullivan statistics show that China's fast food industry is still dominated by Chinese fast food, since 2016, the Chinese fast food market size accounted for about 70%; Western-style fast food market size accounted for about 25%. By 2021, the national Chinese fast food market share is 70.04%, still significantly ahead of western fast food.

Segmented market size have rebounded

Specifically, Chinese fast food, by virtue of its rich cultural heritage, is maturing in China. Chinese fast food restaurants are generally located in busy urban areas, residential neighborhoods, and mobile fast food trucks; some fast food restaurants can be booked by phone, booking delivery and other door-to-door services, the purchase is extremely convenient. When customers do not eat in the fast-food restaurants, need to pack and carry, fast-food restaurants are also able to provide a variety of convenient packaged takeaway services. The general fast food restaurant can reflect the "customer first, convenient public" way of doing business.

Since 2016, China's Chinese fast food market size to maintain a steady growth momentum, from 564.8 billion yuan in 2016 to 725.7 billion yuan in 2019. 2020, by the impact of the epidemic, the development of the national market for Chinese fast food was hindered, to 2021, with the gradual control of the domestic epidemic, the national market size of Chinese fast food rebounded, growing to 772.8 billion yuan, an increase of 17.7% year-on-year. 772.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.27%.

Western fast food, due to its high-calorie, high-fat, high-protein dish characteristics, Western fast food audience compared to Chinese fast food is much smaller, its consumer groups are mainly teenagers, in recent years, in order to further adapt to the Chinese market, McDonald's, KFC, and other Chinese Western fast food companies are trying to Chinese flavors of new products in order to enhance their competitiveness.

From the point of view of market scale, in recent years, China's western-style fast food market size overall maintained between 200-250 billion yuan of small and steady increase, to 2021, with the gradual control of the domestic epidemic, the national western-style fast food market size has also been raised to 282.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 18.77%.

-- For more research and analysis of this industry, please refer to China Fast Food Industry Market Outlook and Investment Strategy Planning Analysis Report